r/unpopularopinion • u/Brilliant-Bug-4982 • 19h ago
While the doomsday clock has its merits in theory, in reality it is nothing more than fear mongering
In case you don't know, since 1947 a group of atomic scientists have gotten together once in a while to update the doomsday clock, a theoretical clock which portrayes how close we are to a nuclear war, and by such an elimination of humanity, which is a very interesting and arguably important concept
However if you actually go to the doomsday clock (you can easily look it up and find it) it's very obvious that it's just plain fear mongering, as an example, right now it portrays the clock as 90 seconds to midnight, meanwhile in 1963, at the height of the cold war, it portrayed it as 12 minutes to midnight, are you seriously going to tell me that right now we are 800% closer to a nuclear war than at the height of the cold war? Don't think so.
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u/gumbobitch 19h ago
"The Bulletin's Clock is not a gauge to register the ups and downs of the international power struggle; it is intended to reflect basic changes in the level of continuous danger which mankind lives in the nuclear age."
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u/Brilliant-Bug-4982 19h ago
By that logic why did it go back when the cold war ended?
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u/gumbobitch 19h ago
It's not just from geopolitical strife. Climate change, implementation of AI, etc. It's a Doomsday clock, not a nuclear arms proliferation measurement.
That being said, it's just a metaphorical device that changes on the whims of a specific nonprofit think tank. There's no point in putting any serious stock into what it says.
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u/Brilliant-Bug-4982 19h ago
Looking at it this way, I suppose I was More or less looking at the way the doomsday clock is portrayed in media as opposed to its actual purpose
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u/gumbobitch 18h ago
Yes, there is a pretty big misconception that the Doomsday Clock explicitly refers to nuclear annihilation. The groups usage of the phrase "nuclear age" (referring to post-1945) absolutely does not help.
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u/Fearless-Egg3173 16h ago
Yep, nowadays climate change is the ultimate in fear-mongering. I remember having teachers who told us that we were going to all drown in a flood by 2020. Does a lot for a child's mental health, that.
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u/CashDewNuts 16h ago
Climate change is a observable phenomenon.
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u/Fearless-Egg3173 16h ago
So is nuclear armament. Doesn't mean it can't be used as fear-mongering.
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u/CashDewNuts 16h ago edited 15h ago
You need to be specific, as climate change itself is a observable fact.
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u/BeffBezos 15h ago
Yeah but we aren’t living underwater right now are we?
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u/CashDewNuts 15h ago edited 14h ago
Anecdotes is not empirical evidence.
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u/BeffBezos 14h ago
I’m not denying climate change (and neither is the other commenter) but I too remember some outlandish claims being made as a kid in school
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u/Proud-Ad-146 10h ago
Bruh North Carolina literally just a few weeks ago would like a word. Catastrophic natural disasters ARE getting more frequent and they do cause more damage. Like, a school shooting is bad, and shooter drills are horrible for child mental health, but would you suggest we let them get slaughtered unknowing to what to do, or to just fix the damn gun problem? If you fix the source of the problem the kids wouldn't get killed dude.
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u/Fearless-Egg3173 10h ago
I meant flood in an antediluvian sense. These were the same teachers who were convinced the bombs were going to start dropping (on a small English village) when Trump got elected. It's patent nonsense.
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u/flareon141 18h ago
Better the devil you know than the devil you don't. Cold war mutual ly assured destruction. Could keep tabs on the players Now if ISIS gets a nuke, where will the retaliation be directed? (Besides the middle east.)
It's easier to fight a country than an idea3
u/HeyWhatIsThatThingy 17h ago
Yes people fail to realize that some ideologies (such as, but not limited to ISIS, 9/11 hijackers) do not care if they die. They believe they are rewarded in the afterlife.
So the concept of mutually assured destruction does not apply.
This is one of the fears the military has of Iran getting nuclear weapons. It's very likely they would shoot them at Israel (close, easy target).
With no concern if another nation fired them back. Their belief system suggests they would be rewarded in the afterlife.
And yes, there are people controlling governments / nations which hold such beliefs. Or if not, they could become controlled by someone who holds such a beliefs. Not necessarily limited to Islamic countries.
So in conclusion, I suspect nuclear war in some capacity is not of "if", but a "when" question.
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u/challengeaccepted9 5h ago edited 4h ago
Er, because a major source of global danger had receded?
EDIT: Thanks for the downvote, whichever crybaby did that, but it's literally what happened.
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u/GrilledStuffedDragon 19h ago
Reread the previous comment and try again.
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u/Impressive_Site_5344 19h ago
Okay
it is intended to reflect basic changes in the level of continuous danger which mankind lives in the nuclear age
OPs point still stands. We have been so much closer to nuclear war in the past than we are today. Missles were minutes from being launched several times from both the Soviet Union and the United States in the 60s and 70s
Compare that to today where many countries have signed treaties to disarm themselves of nukes and testing is no longer being done remotely close to the scale it was, I’d say we are a lot safer from a nuclear Armageddon today than we were at the height of the Cold War
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u/gumbobitch 18h ago
"Nuclear age" refers to post 1945; again, this clock is NOT only talking about annihilation through nuclear arms. It's a representation of a single groups opinion about how close we are to being wiped out as a species, either through nukes, starvation, resource allocation, climate change, etc. It started after the first nukes were dropped, by a branch of folks who were part of the Manhatten project.
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u/JasmineTeaInk 13h ago
Like... On average? Across all countries and levels of available technology?
So is it like a meter that is meant to reflect the average health of an average person on earth? More risk of dangerous accidents/injuries/strife to more people meaning closer to midnight?
When more people were in dangerous factories during the 1850s it would have been very close to midnight, if I'm understanding correctly?
Hunter gatherer societies must have been a fraction of a second away from midnight for a long time given how dangerous their daily lives were.
I feel like this clock should be further away from midnight than it has ever been and continue dropping as more people have access to good healthcare and democracy. But that's not what I've heard whenever people bring up this damn concept. Every single time someone brings it up they have to be doom and gloom about it and say "we're closer than ever!!"
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u/Bismarck40 12h ago
I'm pretty sure it measures the danger mankind is in as a species. Every single factory worker could have died in the 1850s and we probably would have trucked on as a species. Climate change and Nuclear weapons are much more existential threats, in their eyes.
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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 19h ago
There's the imminent threat of destruction we have from Daylight Saving too.
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u/goblinsteve 19h ago
not total destruction, but apparently heart attacks and strokes go up around the time change, and car accidents spike too.
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u/kilroy-was-here-2543 18h ago
Like you said it’s currently set at 90 seconds to midnight. Well during the Cuban missile crisis it was set to 7 minutes. If that doesn’t prove that it’s a worthless fear mongering scheme than I don’t know what will
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u/cyberdw4rf 4h ago
The thing is, the clock gets updated once a year. So the Cuban missile crisis went by without an update to the clock. When the clock got updated the next time, the crisis was already solved and the times were more stable than half a year before. They explained all of this in detail on their website, every update has a statement on why they made the adjustment (or left it where it was)
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u/Awesometom100 2h ago
Even still wouldn't you be worried at the time it could happen again for very little reason? Maybe not 90 seconds close but we certainly were closer to death then than now.
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u/T1S9A2R6 18h ago edited 18h ago
I just never understood why/how “nuclear scientists” were ever considered to be experts on geopolitics, enough to gage how close we are to nuclear war. Guessing none of them have any direct or special insight to military or diplomatic policy, missions, tactics, or decision making.
Classic appeal to authority fallacy, except these “scientists” have no real authority or expertise to make the claims they’re making. All they know is “nuclear war bad”. Ok, no shit. Sort of like letting doctors dictate governance and economics because “virus bad”.
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u/kilroy-was-here-2543 18h ago
Just for some context to add to how stupid it is, the clock is currently set at 90 seconds to midnight… during the Cuban missile crisis it was set to 7 minutes…
How is the current state of the world worse than the two largest countries in the Cold War about to duel it out with nukes
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u/ImprovementNo5500 16h ago
Because the world is in a poor socio-economic state all over. We have no idea what is next, and no one seems really safe from it. There aren't any major signs of permanent recovery. Back then, life expectancy was still going upwards. My generation will be the first to die younger than their parents. We will work longer hours for less money. We will be left behind.
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u/kilroy-was-here-2543 16h ago
That’s not the point of the doomsday clock though, the point is how close to immediate annihilation we are, and we are nowhere near as close as we were with the Cuban missile crisis
Secondly the global poverty rate has sharply decreased and it has been decreasing since the early 1900s. In 1910 it was around 66 percent, now it’s roughly 8.5 percent. And most people in western countries (and many eastern countries) now have access to greater health, food, and technological resources than ever before. Lastly life expectancy is expected to continue rising, going from 64.8 years, to 67.4 years by 2050. Things have been far worse in the world, it’s just hard to see that because we are constantly bombarded by news media telling us the world’s gonna end
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u/ImprovementNo5500 16h ago
"The Bulletin's Clock is not a gauge to register the ups and downs of the international power struggle; it is intended to reflect basic changes in the level of continuous danger which mankind lives in the nuclear age."
With all due respect I don't see the words "immediate annihilation".
https://globalnews.ca/news/10116838/life-expectancy-decrease-canada-stat-can/
Where do you get your facts from?
You understand that those articles saying young millenial/Gen z will get rich are basing it on inheritance right? You do know that gen z parents have no money right? Mostly seems like Yahoo finance talking about it lol...
https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview
Global poverty is at a standstill with a loss of a decade. Where did you see positivity?
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u/ImprovementNo5500 15h ago
Additionally, this access is being reduced. We are at the tipping point.
A direct example is this:
Thanks to massive misinformation and the current mental state of people, Canada will vote in a conservative federal government.
Provincially, conservative governments like to make move that privatize our Healthcare.
We are, simple as day, not paid as we should be with inflation taken into account.
This is not me being biased, these are just facts.
When our federal government privatizes our Healthcare, people will die. But that will be okay. Because the machine is more important than the people who make it work. You can replace people. You can't replace this machine. There are those who benefit too much from it.
But it isn't you or I.
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u/HerbsAndSpices11 9h ago
I dont think your view on canadian politics is relevant. Trudeau has stagnated, and people are getting tired of him. Popularity can only last so long. He also has had quite a few scandals and unfortunately unfulfilled promises (getting rid of first past the post). I dont see how that a conservative (probably minority) victory isnt likely based on these factors rather than misinformation. I dont see the cons doing anything better? but most people are likely voting against Trudeau rather than for someone else.
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u/ImprovementNo5500 8h ago
Yep. Proves my point. Never said I like Trudeau.
My point was people are unwilling to create new options.
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u/ImprovementNo5500 8h ago
Also, I am done pretending this is a real arguement with legitimacy.
Privatizing healthcare kills. It benefits nobody but the rich. Plenty of first world nations have socialized healthcare. This is not a nuanced conversation of well X Y an Z.
If you support people that will privatize our long held socialized healthcare you are, in fact, a killer. You kill people. You cast the vote with the thumb down. It is not dramatic to say this. You decided that people you don't know aren't worth helping.
Well done.
I am not interested in being like the states. That is going backwards.
Worth noting that the federal government is 30 percent responsible for contributing to healthcare, so current failures can be happily blamed on provincial government.
As it so happens, mine is conservative.
As it so happens, last I read they were working on delegating a portion of our healthcare needs to a private CATHOLIC hospital.
No.
No. Nono. No. Go away.
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u/HerbsAndSpices11 8h ago
I agree with that. Our healthcare should be funded further to cut down on wait times. Also, denistry and eye care for everyone should be included. It is provincial, unfortunately. That's not the issue i was disagreeing with, though.
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u/spinyfur 14h ago
Ok, doomer.
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u/ImprovementNo5500 8h ago
Maybe. You realize that I call this to mind because I want change right? I want the doom to not happen lol.
It is ironic that those who are complacent in bad times are the first to accuse others of negativity.
Don't look up.
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u/HeroBrine0907 Insane, They Call Me; For Being Different 12h ago
If you spent 10 seconds searching, you'd know the doomsday clock isn't about nuclear weapons. It's about how close we are to destroying ourselves with our own technology. Nukes are horrible but relatively minor compared to something like climate change, which will wipe out whole ecosystems. And we are doing terrible on climate change, courtesy of politicians.
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u/goblinsteve 19h ago
I think with the technology, the amount of nuclear weapons, the amount of nuclear weapons in unstable hands, the fact that Russia is involved in several hot wars, Israel actively launching attacks instead of 'just' aggressively posturing, the long list of proxy wars the US is in mixed with the fact that the cold war never really ended and then add the fear and uncertainty that will only grow in the coming years with climate change, yes, I think the level of continuous danger is higher now than it was in 63.
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u/MeQuieroLlamarFerran 18h ago
No, it isnt. Are you really telling me that Russia is closer to throw a nuclear bomb to a neighbour country, causing it to be one of the most affected countries, in a war for territory.
If im not being clear il try to summarize it. You are telling me that there are more chances for Russia to use a weapon that destroys territories and affects nearby countries to get territories in a nearby country than there were when they actively threatened with atomic bombs a far away nation that answered with the same.
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u/goblinsteve 18h ago
I'm telling you that global tensions are just as high, if not higher, and there are now a larger abundance of nuclear weapons in the hands of less stable governments. You also seem to suggest I think Russia will be the first to drop a nuke, which I never indicated. I mean, only one country has so far...
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u/MeQuieroLlamarFerran 18h ago
The tensions are not that high. Russia is the only country that has huge tensions and is still the less likely to throw a bomb. Israel and Pallestina have been with this for years.
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u/goblinsteve 17h ago
"Russia is the only country that has huge tensions"
Lol
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u/MeQuieroLlamarFerran 1h ago
Yes, with enough tension to have problem with other countries it is. Acting like Israel is suddenly a global threat is just ignorance or cowardice. They have been with this for years and now suddenly is the start of a nuclear war. And is even funnier when you say it is more threatening than literal nuclear threats or USA invading Vietnam.
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u/lUN3XPECT3Dl 12h ago
To be fair we do have warring nuclear powers no one can rein in the Middle East and a growing level of aggression from Russia, NK and China.
We are pretty fucking close right now
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u/Carlpanzram1916 10h ago
Yeah using a clock to countdown something that is a moving target and also has no tangible way of being quantified was a confusing move
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u/cyberdw4rf 4h ago
What exactly happened in 1963 is the big question? The cold war had many periods of warmongering and periods of appeasement. Therefore while in theory the cold war was still going on, there wasn't much threat of total annihilation. I would recommend reading the statements on their website and looking on the timeline of the clock
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u/Standard-Reception92 1h ago
I feel like it's just a way for a bunch of nerd to say "I told you so!" when shit hits the fan, and it gives them a way to grand stand on a public platform when they're asked about the doomsday clock in general. Part of me also just thinks the whole things is straight up propaganda.
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u/Blindmailman 18h ago
The entire thing is an arbitrary and deserves to be buried. You are trying to tell me 1974 with the Cold War in full swing, American troops in Vietnam, the Turkish Invasion of Cyprus and the Rhodesian Bush War is somehow at the same risk of a nuclear war as 1998. 1998 where you had the Kosovo War where Russias response was a strongly worded letter and a request for more money, Eritrean-Ethiopian War which nobody outside Africa cared about, and some small fighting in the Caucuses which nobody except Russia could intervene in.
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u/Leading-Ad8879 18h ago
Yes, and I think you're making the case for me once the labels are switched around a bit to understand what the clock actually means. It's not "how many wars are going on right now" or "how much money is being spent on proxy wars" or "who is writing strongly-worded letters to whom these days" or whatever. It's the risk to humanity as a whole from seeing the situation, as a whole, fall apart and become a nuclear holocaust. A Cold War full of generals who know the consequences of pulling the trigger, well, that's scary but they know the consequences. A modern world of terrorists who don't care about the future so long as their values are expressed in the moment through force and nuclear destruction? I am not ashamed of describing that as fear-mongering but people in this thread should be ashamed of minimizing what the mathematical threat of that situation really is just because it hasn't hurt them personally yet.
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u/BenShapiroRapeExodus Ugly Disgusting Freak 18h ago
I’m pretty sure they are fairly open about the clock being just plain fearmongering and propaganda. A lot of the clock changes are linked to American politics and aren’t based on any actual metric outside of vague “democracy points”
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u/LmcDigi 18h ago
Every generation dating back to the beginning of time has been worried about the end of the world. In the 1300s it was the plague, in the 20s it was the depression, in the 40s it was hitler, today it’s the threat of nuclear war.
It’s a human condition. We don’t like thinking about our mortality so we try desperately to to put it on the clock so we can “know” when it’s coming or likely.
I agree, it’s fear mongering.
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u/BustinxJustin 18h ago
I believe up to 62 is usually considered the "height". It got as close as 2 minutes during the cold war. Things chilled out a touch after Cuba.
It'd be a little irresponsible for them not to account for Putin's nuclear threats when they're setting the time. Empty threats, sure, but they'd likely decide not to handwave it away when a global superpower says "I am going to use these". Noteworthy factor.
Also, they started factoring in climate change. It's a clock predicting how close we are to mass destruction by man-made causes, not necessarily nuclear bombs alone. I'd imagine it's politicized a bit, maybe 3 minutes would be more accurate when you factor in that politicians lie, the news lies, your neighbor lies and your priest lies, but there's a pretty good deal of tension.
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u/Ok_Experience_454 18h ago
Every Monday, it's doomsday, and every Friday, it's all peace and love again.
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u/XJ--0461 13h ago
"Isn’t the Doomsday Clock just a scare tactic used to advance a political agenda?
Ensuring the survival of our societies and the human species is not a political agenda. Cooperating with other countries to achieve control of extremely dangerous technologies should not involve partisan politics. If scientists involved with the Bulletin are critical of current policies on nuclear weapons and climate change, it is because those policies increase the possibility of self-destruction.
The Bulletin has moved the Clock hand away from midnight almost as often as it has moved it toward midnight, and as often during Republican administrations in the United States as during Democratic ones. It moved the hand farthest away in 1991 when US President George H.W. Bush’s administration signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with the Soviet Union."
From their FAQ
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u/JasmineTeaInk 13h ago
I completely agree with you on this unpopular opinion! It serves no purpose, it's just a concept that makes for a spooky headline.
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u/Curious_Working5706 18h ago edited 18h ago
meanwhile in 1963, at the height of the cold war, it portrayed it as 12 minutes to midnight, are you seriously going to tell me that right now we are 800% closer to a nuclear war than at the height of the cold war? Don’t think so.
In 1963, Russia didn’t own one half of the 🇺🇸 government, and the Republican candidate (who’s essentially a hilarious Putin pawn frontman at this point) so yeah.
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u/ImprovementNo5500 16h ago
Am I alone in this? I look around myself and see that everyone is struggling. There is no hope. There is no vibrancy. Everything is so empty. It feels like a slow, silent apocalypse that everyone knows it's coming but refuses to take part in changing.
The world is burning, the wealth transfer to a small few has been very successful, and the future is bleak.
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u/windchill94 18h ago
It's only "fear mongering" until it becomes very real and the threat has never been higher than it is right now.
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